The Guffey Team

Classroom Exercises

Good summaries produce a thoughtful, abbreviated version of an original. Help your students learn to write streamlined summaries. Read more.

Parsing Paraphrasing

Teaching paraphrasing is important if we want our students to cite correctly and write with integrity. This helpful assignment can be done individually or in groups. Read more.

Classroom Exercise: Edit to Enhance Professionalism

Have your students edit this rude, wordy e-mail. We provide the two activities for you to choose from, suggested solutions, and a proofreading marks handout. Read more.

Bonus Case Study: Pesky Clutch Problems Plague Harley-Davidson

This bad-news scenario uses the direct organizational strategy. Discuss the writing strategy or have your students write their own response to this bonus case study! Read more.

Sound Smarter—Grammar Guru’s Greatest Guidelines

The Grammar Girl—aka Mignon Fogarty—offers handy tips for avoiding five common grammar gaffes. Download the exercise and answer key for this change-of-pace lesson. Read more.

Slanguage: Not for Use at Work

Help your students realize when they’re using slang instead of standard English with this fun, ready-to-use exercise. Read more.

Evaluating Teaching on Your Terms: Course Experience Assignment

When students weigh in on their course experience rather than merely rating a course and instructor, responses provide valuable feedback. Read more.

Blowing Away Puffed‐up Résumés

Today’s competitive workplace may cause students to consider exaggerating or even lying on their résumés. Help them understand the repercussions of doing so. Read more.

Captivating Cover Letters: A Great “In”

A well-written cover letter can give a job candidate a leg up. Have your students identify the elements that make this original cover letter effective. We include a marked up version for you, too. Read more.

Case Study in Crisis Communication—The Santa Barbara Oil Spill

Following an oil spill in in Santa Barbara, California, Plains All American Pipeline was indicted on criminal charges. The apology letter sent to Santa Barbara residents offers a rich opportunity for analysis in the business communication classroom. Read more.

Writing Tweets: Farm to Table Event Needs Social Media Marketing

One of the latest dining trends is the farm-to-table experience. Have your students create tweets to publicize a pop-up picnic. Read more.

Curing Two Comma Conundrums

Help students learn how to fix two common punctuation errors. Read more.

Which One Is It? Me, Myself, and I

The misuse of me, myself, and I is generally caused by not understanding when to use the pronoun me. Help your students with this confusing conundrum. Read more.

Three First-Day Writing Assessment Exercises

Choose from three downloadable exercises that offer different first-day writing assessment activities. Customize them to your own specifications or use them as is! Read more.

Combine and Refine: Sentence Variety Exercise

Instructors: This helpful, classroom-ready writing technique exercise will help your students learn to compose smoother and more sophisticated prose. We’ve included the exercise and answer key at the end of the post for you! Read more.

The Career Bio—Just as Necessary as a Résumé

A career bio differs from a résumé, but many say having both are key to today’s successful job search. Discuss the career bio with your class. Then have them perform an analysis of an actual career bio created for LinkedIn. Read more.

Speaker Freakers and Stinky Food? Test Your Office Etiquette IQ

New communication platforms and casual workplace environments have blurred the lines of appropriateness…Read more.

Using Dashes Correctly

English uses three different dashes–when to use each? This classroom exercise will help your students know. Read more.

Instructors: Use this exercise on passive voice as a short and simple change-of-pace task. Let your students work in teams to discuss the mini-quiz questions that follow the explanation. Read more.

Case Study: Bakery Owners Get Burned on Social Media

Businesses large and small are turning to social media to expand their customer bases and to garner attention. However, not all attention is good attention. Read more.

Eliminating Fragments, Run-ons, and Comma Splices

Instructors: Businesses gripe that new grads have poor grammar. Help your students learn to eliminate three easily fixed sentence structure errors. Download the exercise and answer key below or cut and paste directly from this post. Read more.

Bad-News Assignment

This assignment will allow students to put the indirect vs. direct strategy to delivering bad news to the test. Read more.

We Won’t Pay! Evaluating The Corinthian Fifteen’s Emotional Appeal

After a series of lawsuits brought by the Department of Education, the for-profit college, Corinthian, recently went under. Fifteen Corinthian students wrote an impassioned refusal to to pay their students loans to the DOE. Your students will be interested to discuss this timely and relevant topic. Read more.

Résumé Experience Statement Exercise

Help your students work on writing concise, effective résumé statements with this ready-to-use classroom exercise. Read more.

Writing an Elegant Resignation Letter

Crafting a letter of resignation can be tricky. Use this example of a beautifully written resignation sent by the director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy for a terrific teachable moment. Read more.

It’s the Principal (or is that Principle?)

Employers complain about employees who can’t spell or who confuse common words. Help your students be better prepared for workplace expectations with this 15-sentence Confusing Words Exercise. Read more.

Home Depot Delivers—But It’s Bad News

After a recent security breach, Home Depot sent this bad news letter to its customers. How did the “world’s largest home improvement retailer” do? Have your students evaluate the letter’s effectiveness using the critical thinking questions we’ve put together for you. Read more.

Petulant Poster Outed by Convoluted Writing Style

This quick change-of-pace exercise would make a good introduction to a lesson on eliminating bloated language. We’ve included rewrites, but feel free to let your students come up with their own! Read more.

Words/Expressions to Avoid Worksheet

Looking for a change-of-pace exercise? Try this worksheet with your students! Discuss the wordy expressions with your class; then let them apply what they’ve learned by editing the practice sentences. We’ve included a key for you, too!Read more.

Purrrrrfect Case Studies: Cat Cafés and Entrepreneurialism

Pets are big business, and trendy cat cafés will make a great discussion or exercise for your students. Choose from a short assignment or a longer one. Read more.

Is it Ethical to Buy Followers?

This real-life case speaks directly to students and is a great way to get them thinking about ethical behavior early in the semester. Read more.

End-of-Semester Assignment: Formal Letter to Professor

At the end of my business communication course, I like my students to reflect on what they’ve learned and then demonstrate those accomplishments in a final assignment. Because they have not written a formal business letter, I use this genre … Read more

Case Study: Raise the Minimum Wage? Employee Says Yea

As one of more than twenty minimum-wage employees at Carly’s Catering in Omaha, Nebraska, you are closely following the national debate about raising the minimum wage. Read more.

Case Study: Tweet, Tweet for Relay for LifeRelay for Life, a fundraiser developed by the American Cancer Society, is an overnight event in which teams of people camp out around a track field or path. Read more.

Case Study: Using IM to Build Customer RelationshipsThe following log is a transcript of a live IM chat between a Skyline Mobile customer service representative and a customer inquiring about an unexpected added fee. Read more.

Bonus Case Study – Poor Claim LetterThe following claim letter suffers from many writing faults. List at least five weaknesses. Then revise the message to remedy its faults and make it more likely to achieve its purpose. Read more.

Bonus Case Study – Persuasive E-Mail: Miserable MeetingsThe following e-mail message suffers from many writing faults, including poor tone and poor persuasive strategy. It originated with a manager and is addressed to his boss. Read more.

Bonus Case Study – Confusing Office Move MessageThe following message, which originated in an international technology company, was intended to inform new team members about their upcoming move… Read more.